


come live with me in the sea said she

by TheGoodDoctor



Series: to be as one is [3]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Christmas, Emotional Baggage, Family, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21906736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGoodDoctor/pseuds/TheGoodDoctor
Summary: household, n.: 1) those who dwell under the same roof and compose a family2) a place for you, if and when you need iton togetherness in the face of all doubt.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Series: to be as one is [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2013112
Comments: 16
Kudos: 106





	come live with me in the sea said she

They are still getting used to one another, he and James, even now. Francis does not mind it; in fact, there is a curious coiling joy about not quite knowing James after all this time - a space to learn more, in which Francis can fit a good few years yet. And they are, perhaps, different people now than they had been when they met. James is least changed in essentials, Francis thinks; he is only more publically himself, now, and not altogether transformed. Francis, however, feels rather as though James has met him three times over: as the furious, disappointed drunk; as the sober, worry-weary Atlas of the expedition; as the hermit’s lantern, lit from within by his fierce and protective love. But James has taken his metamorphoses in stride, smiling him back to something like himself every time Francis forgets, somewhere between dreaming of ice and waking in warm, where and who and what it is that he is supposed to be. Dreams trouble him, but James is a comforting constant - like a jewel, that is solid between one’s fingers but displays a new shimmering facet at every turn.

But apparently Francis has his own new faces, too, for when he turns from stoking the fire he finds James watching him rather than reading the book open in his lap, with a little amused fondness tucked into the crook of his smile. Francis raises an eyebrow and James offers him a flash of teeth. “Sir, you could putter for Ireland,” James says, rather triumphant, and Francis rolls his eyes. He likes _puttering_ , as James insists upon calling it; doing little things, with less meaning, that allow him to wander a space and make it ever so slightly more comfortable. Over the summer, James had sat in a chair on their little patch of grass and watched Francis leisurely deadhead the rather aggressive roses on the corner trellis, or slowly, thoughtfully, weed the little patch of vegetables, or just frown at the slug evidence on the leaves between his fingers. Forced inside by the colder weather, Francis stokes fires and secures shutters against drafts and fusses with blankets. He recognises the behaviour for what it is: a patrol, of sorts, around the spaces he calls his own to make them yet more secure and safe or, failing that, simply to trace out their perimeter in certainty. But James seems to find his gentle guard endearing, and Francis has no desire to deprive himself of any further comforts, and so he putters.

James wriggles his slipper down to his toes and flicks it at Francis, smacking it into his knee. “Would you putter kettle-wards if I asked tremendously nicely?” he says, batting his eyelids and twisting his mouth against a smile.

Francis affects a frown and lobs the soft shoe back at James. “If you don’t begin with ballistics, I dare say I might.” 

James clutches the slipper where it had landed against his chest, play-acting a very fine melodrama of injury complete with overwrought cough, lolling tongue and faintly crossed eyes. The whole production coaxes an ungainly snort from Francis and he can feel James’ victorious delight even as he kneels and turns away to warm the kettle before the fire. They have a kitchen for tea and even a maid, but of a cold evening the appeal is ever in remaining cloistered together with all they could possibly want within the one room and with no cause to leave it. Francis turns back to James simply for the pleasure of the fire at his back and a well-beloved smile before his eyes - why should he want to go even so far as the kitchen?

James extends his foot to prod at Francis’ shoulder. “The singing was a nice addition to the puttering,” he says, very mildly, as if Francis might spook. At the acknowledgement or the compliment, Francis isn’t sure; perhaps both.

Francis feels his face slide into an embarrassed frown. “Was I singing?”

James nods, and then pokes a toe into his arm again. “ _Nice_ ,” he emphasises, and Francis resists the urge to apologise for breaking the quiet so.

“Must have heard some carollers earlier,” he says gruffly. It’s an excuse and thus feels apologetic anyhow, and James rolls his eyes gently. Francis wraps his hand around the delicate ball of James’ ankle and rubs the curve with his thumb; having distracted himself with thin, pale softness, he can provide James with another apology for his reticence. “My mother always sang carols, this time of year.”

James hums in interest, but does not press for his confidences. James is perhaps the only person to whom Francis would give his secrets freely, and yet it sometimes feels as if he is the only person who does not demand them. Francis shuffles a little closer, away from the warmth of the fire and into the glow of James’ orbit, to settle his other hand on the slope of James’ other calf. In disproportionately great reward, James skates his fingers down one side of his face to smooth his greying hair away from his eyes. Francis’ eyes flutter shut, and he speaks into quiet and darkness and warmth.

“I don’t remember her singing anything else. Perhaps she used to, for she had too fine a voice to be wasted on our kitchen alone. But she led my sisters in a little choir, every year. I used to sit at the table and listen while they cooked up our feast.” He opens his eyes and finds that, with James’ eyes heavy and fond upon him, the memories do not hurt so much as they might. “When my father was out, my sisters fed me mincemeat from a spoon if mother wasn’t looking.” James huffs a soft laugh, and Francis wishes he could enchant the moment and become that little boy again, swinging his legs on a too-tall chair and sneaking mouthfuls of sweet stickiness in moments of indulgence, or at the very least show James. Say to him: _I used to be less careworn than I am now. Once, it was within my power to sit peaceably and worry for nothing._

That would not, of course, be quite true; James knows well enough that Francis’ father is notably absent from these scenes for good reason, and can gather easily that perhaps Francis’ mother would have sung more were it not for the need to step carefully around him. But even without his readily admissible nostalgia, it must be conceded that the boy did at least worry for _less_ than the man does presently.

James traces the line of his jaw with the very tip of his finger. “I should have liked a Christmas like that,” he muses. “There were no singers amongst the Coninghams; Rose Hill was never a very musical place. Will and I used to change the words to hymns in Church and got in dreadful trouble for it.”

Francis grins, squeezing James’ ankle and chasing his hand to press a kiss to his fingertips. “If you were half as much trouble then-”

“Oh, at least twice that which I am now,” James assures him, eyes dancing. “If not more. We drove absolutely everyone to distraction, and not just old captains who were grumpy already.”

Biting his lip against a laugh, Francis pinches the back of James’ leg and startles him into a yelp with giggles close on its heels. “I’m sure you were a marvellous influence on that boy, James.”

“He was just as bad!” James protests, but is entirely unable to keep his straight face from sliding irretrievably into amusement. “Truly, Francis, he and I were equals in mischief.”

“Yet he, you tell me, is comfortably married and making a bid for political office; you, James, once took a cheetah for a ship’s cat.”

James barks a laugh and Francis’ studied dryness cracks into delight at the sound of it. “Alright, alright. You horror,” he tells Francis fondly. “Besides, he’s just bought the most enormous altarpiece for the sitting room at great expense, and Elizabeth hates the thing.”

There’s a sort of wistfulness to James as he says it, though Francis quickly dismisses a longing for similar works of art. He feels his way carefully around the edges of it, discerning the shape of James’ want, until he has made a picture from negative space. “You might invite the Coninghams to stay,” he suggests, somewhat cautiously.

James shakes his head, but his wanting is replaced only with a frown and Francis is not sure he was wrong in the shape’s estimation. “They’ve a new baby; they shan’t want to relocate to town at this time of year.”

“Then mention in your next letter how dearly you would love to see them, and I dare say you’ll receive an invitation before the words have even left your pen,” Francis says, rubbing his thumbs over James’ skin. 

James huffs a little, as though he might like to say something to negate that, only he can’t quite think what at present. “The children,” he settles on eventually, and Francis sighs. He cannot quite establish what it is that keeps James at bay from his brother; at every mention of Will, Elizabeth or either of James’ godchildren he expresses every delight and affection, and yet Francis’ attempts to reunite the family seem most often stymied by James himself.

“Your goddaughters,” Francis points out, but gently; he will not push the matter, if James truly does not wish him too. It must show in his face or his tone or the strange unearthly sense they seem to have of one another, for James relaxes minutely and strokes a gentle finger over the creases at the corner of his eye.

He stops at the end of the line and taps it gently, barely meeting Francis’ skin. James looks troubled, as if he is making a decision, and then he sighs. Takes a deep breath. Opens his mouth.

The kettle boils, squealing like a steam engine a thousand times its size, and Francis has to let James go in order to quiet it. He turns back to James as fast as he can, minimising the interruption as far as he is able to, but James is now leaning back in his armchair and has hidden his trouble beneath almost studied normalcy, and Francis is forced to recognise the moment they had almost had for what it is: lost.

* * *

James shoots him the odd suspicious look over it, but does not press the matter, for which Francis is grateful. He is grateful, too, for the waves of fidgeting, frenetic joy which overcome James at intervals; for the _entirely coincidental_ and wonderfully enthusiastic invitation extended by the Coninghams for the whole Christmas season; for James deeming it more likely that the invitation was a curious twist of fate than that Francis had crept to his desk late at night and penned an awkward request to a complete stranger by candlelight. James Ross had once told Francis that the secret to a good marriage was to let the other person win every argument, even if they’re wrong, but Francis loves James too well for that.

“How many shirts do you imagine you’ll need?” Francis says gently, reaching out to rub the thin fabric piling out of the chest beside him. “Will we dine out nightly? Are there no laundresses in Hertfordshire?” His own sea chest is by the door, the possessions within squared away by years of practice born of necessity, and so he is leaning against the headboard with his legs crossed at the ankle, extended over the bed they share, and watching the chaos unfold.

James gestures wildly in his direction, frowning at his wardrobe. “How should I know?” He is in a curious mood on this, their last full day at home. There is an incredible frantic tension running too-fast through him, though he is all enthusiasm to go whenever Francis gently presses. In consequence, Francis cannot see how to settle him: to set off early and be at Rose Hill almost a day before expected, or to suggest that perhaps they not go at all. He suspects, in fact, that both options would be equally poorly received. 

James runs a hand through his hair. He looks half likely to weep into his waistcoats, or shred his cravats with his teeth.

Francis removes the bundle of shirts from where James had thrown them, vaguely in the direction of the chest. From these, he selects the nicer ones and sets the other half of the bundle aside, neatly folding the remainder into a squared stack and placing it into the chest. “There,” Francis says, not unkindly. “You may have that many shirts, and no more.”

When he looks back at James, it is to find him with both hands frozen in his hair and watching Francis work with the tiniest hint of a smile. It’s the calmest that Francis has seen him all day. James takes half a step forwards and then stops; Francis opens his arms and shifts his feet and James flies the rest of the distance. He plants his face into Francis’ collarbone and burrows close until he is spread so entirely over Francis that he might be a thick layer of snow, moulded to every contour in a solid, blanketing weight. Francis wraps his arms about James’ shoulders and breathes him in, nose buried in his hair, and James is, at last, still.

“Well?” Francis says, after a decent interval.

James grunts. “Why aren’t we visiting your family instead?” he says, rather crossly.

Francis can’t help a smile. Visiting his family would involve a rather extensive tour of the County Down and the great difficulty of remembering how many nieces and nephews he has now. “What if I want to meet your brother, at last?”

James shifts his head in order to eyeball Francis. “What if I want to meet your brothers and sisters?” he returns, and Francis frowns at him. He isn’t sure what this is all about, but it isn’t about that.

“ _James._ ”

James sighs and buries his face again. “I know,” he says. Because Francis would keep them at home in a heartbeat, if that was what James really, truly wanted, and William would probably accept any kind of excuse - they’ve plenty of troubles and ailments between them to invent something plausible - and no-one is forcing them to go. “I want to go,” James says, rather as though he is convincing himself as much as anyone else. 

Francis gives his shoulders a gentle shake. “So?”

James sighs. “Truly, Francis, I barely know myself. I suppose it is that-” he shifts against Francis’ chest so that he can look up at him, cradled in the curve of Francis’ arms. “Well, what if it is not - how I remember it. I have had a great many memories, and yet more dreams, and sometimes - you know.”

Francis does know. The mixing of memory and imaginings is the worst, he thinks, of their sufferings: the distrust of one’s own mind, even one’s senses - the belief that, after all, one is not home and safe and well but instead lying on hard stone a thousand miles north and dreaming oneself a kind of paradise - these are the hardest to overcome. He cannot blame James for the fear that he has made a fragile Eden of his childhood home in the days they spent on the ice seeking greenery and knowledge and God. He cannot even be surprised.

He leans in to press a kiss to James’ brow and feels his eyelashes against his chin as James’ eyes flutter closed. They had spent a day, recently, slowly wandering the National Gallery, arm in arm and murmuring together over the artworks. The Turners had captured their attention longest, comparing the ships to those they had sailed in or simply admiring the way the painted light shone on the water in such perfect facsimile, but James had cooed for far too long (for Francis’ taste, anyway) over Constable’s perfect English landscapes. Francis had let his eye wander, and had become briefly quite entranced with another painting. A _Pietà_ , he knew that much at a glance, but something about the terrible sorrow in it was unfamiliar - never had he seen a person cradling the dead with such awful wrenching resignation. And then they had moved on, and Francis had forgotten it; but now he is cradling James in an imitation more precise even than Turner’s, and perhaps his sorrow is the same, too. Francis had known that they would not all return home when they had walked out; had known, too, that James was bearing wounds that had nearly killed him once already; had even once almost, _almost,_ poisoned James himself before at last they reached Back’s Fish River and their blessed salvation. Returning home had been a kind of rebirth, but not for long. They had none of them recovered entirely. Francis had known that they would not, and yet he had gone on anyway, resigned to his terrible, terrible sorrow. Therein lies the peculiar horror of the season; for every Christmas, there is an Easter. And the myrrh has ever been Francis’, reminding men like Franklin at every turn that he knows how this story could well end, like Mary holding her son’s funeral balm at his birth, and then ultimately cradling all that remains with the horrible resignation of having anticipated this ending all along.

James reaches up, brushing fingertips along his jawline. “I have made you sad,” he says apologetically.

Francis pulls him a little closer against his chest. “I have made myself sad, James,” he corrects gently, endeavouring to smile against his own malaise. James is here, and well, and he need not beg for pity. “But I think you may trust your memories so long as they make you happier, and I shall be with you should they not.” James smiles at him gratefully, but in the same moment tenses within his arms. Francis frowns; he had meant the statement to be comforting, but should it not be- “Although - I could remain here, if you should rather spend Christmas-”

James grips Francis’ gansey with fingers like claws as if Francis might slip away in an instant. “No, Francis, no, you must-”

“-your family, James-”

“-stay with me-”

“-the Rosses would have me, if I asked-”

“-damn the Rosses,” James says firmly, and Francis finally compels his mouth to close in the face of such insistence and the slight relaxing of the body in his arms. “I shall have far greater need of you, and I shall let you hide away from society for as much of Boxing Day as you like, and so you shall have a far better time with me than with the Rosses anyway.” _So there_ , Francis rather thinks James would like to say, and the thought makes him smile. James colours slightly and squirms at how briefly emphatic and rather childish his rant had been, but he maintains steady eye contact with Francis. He means every word.

“Oh, well, in that case,” Francis says, amused and slightly embarrassed, and presses a kiss to the arch of James’ brow. He’d like, at some point, to learn the things which trouble James through some process other than elimination through getting it constantly wrong, but it seems not to be; to be so emphatically wanted, however, is rather gratifying. Exceedingly, in fact. Francis can’t quite hold James’ eye for fear of asking him _why,_ and in so doing losing James to someone far more deserving of his wonder.

James curls into him as he pulls back, pressing his face into Francis’ neck and settling there. There is a pause, and a breath, as if James had considered saying something and then said nothing at all. “Will you help me pack?” he asks in the end, so softly that Francis is not sure he heard him at all.

“Of course,” Francis murmurs in reply. He mentally sets aside James’ trouble; James does not wish to speak of it, and Francis has no desire to distress. It will come out eventually, like a tooth that needs pulling, but that's no reason to go pressing against it to feel the sting. “Of course I'll help.”

* * *

The Coninghams are very kind, and perfectly obliging; Francis may escape into their garden or library as often as he pleases. He is glad of it: he need fear fewer missteps out here, where simply keeping to the gravel paths minimises his impact to nothing, a ghost in the frost. The trees stretch bare for the heavy clouds like masts against the grey, and despite everything he is at home amongst the monochromatic bleakness of high December.

"You've stolen my hiding place, sir," James says, footsteps crunching on the frozen earth. Francis turns, walking back to meet him halfway and tuck James' hand into his elbow. The cold bothers his joints and Francis would rather have him pressed into his side and clinging to his arm than hobbling alone with his cane. James settles into the warmth of his body with a pleased sigh, shifting his feet and placing his weight and balance in Francis' hands. "I used to hide away here or in the orchard when I was a child."

"From what?" Francis says, fussing with James' scarf. His hands still briefly. "And I'm not hiding," he remembers to add.

James' amusement hangs white on the air, frozen between them. "Oh, you know: schooling, bathtime, sniffy relations."

Francis cocks a brow at him. "You must have been terrible at concealment, then; intelligent, diplomatic, and clean-behind-the-ears as you are."

James shoves his shoulder into him a little, barely enough to make them sway. "That was almost a compliment, Francis," he says dryly.

Francis hums in mild agreement, keeping his contentment glowing within. James' presence, here, gazing with him up at the empty branches and the wide cinereal sky, has settled him somewhat; smoothed his internal seas down to a millpond and left him content to imagine a smaller, wilder James halfway up an oak tree in childish defiance. James makes it easy to be easy, and Francis loves him tremendously.

"Well," James says thoughtfully, staring away at the clouds rather than at Francis and tapping his cane against the hard earth. "You're past the point of education, now, and not grubby enough for the housekeeper to threaten you with the outside tap-" he says, ignoring Francis' noise of objection at having been judged far too old a dog for new tricks, "-so are my relations to blame?"

It's a loaded question, innocuously asked, and Francis sets his face in stone. The Coninghams are not to blame, in that they've done nothing at all to upset; and yet they are, in that if Francis was at home he would not be out in his garden frowning at the frost. He likes William and Elizabeth well enough, for strangers, and their children are no better or worse than most other children, and he has been made perfectly comfortable in their home. Francis is grateful enough just to be here - to be with James at Christmas _and_ to give him the gift of Christmas with his own, well-loved family. He is aware that not all such as he are fortunate enough to be invited into the family home of a loved one as an honoured guest and special friend, and he rather suspects that he wouldn't have the strength for the brave faces exhibited by Lieutenants Jopson and Little in their letters to Crozier. So he is thankful, and fortunate, and in no place to hide from his generous hosts.

And yet, he is standing at the furthest corner of the lawn, considering a longer excursion into the orchard to while away the time on his own before dinner.

"It is not your relations," he says, because to say otherwise would be rude and unkind and not wholly accurate. "I merely wished for a little time to myself."

"Oh." James starts to pull away and get his cane under him, but Francis catches his hand and reels him back in.

"You don't count," he says gruffly. There's some inarticulate sentiment within him, claiming something incomprehensible and soppy about James being a part of himself, but the most of this that Francis can convey is with a tightening of his fingers around James'. If he is to watch the world idly turn in silence, he'd like to have James at his side to watch it with him.

"Oh," James says again, this time in pretended offense to disguise his pleasure. Francis squeezes his arm and rolls his eyes: _you know what I mean._

A robin eyeballs them from the orchard gate, opening its beak from time to time to trill aggressively in their direction. James huffs out a breath into the cold and presses closer into Francis' side, burrowing as much of his long frame into the warmth of his companion as possible. Francis will have to shepherd them both inside again soon, before James gets chilled through, but he knows how to _be,_ here in the cold with just James to see him. It has been a great many years since he spent any considerable time in a family, and his childhood at home was not nearly so happy as James enjoyed here, or as the Coningham daughters presently enjoy. He has not the reference needed of an adult in a peaceful household upon which to model himself, nor the natural ease around children with which to endear himself to James' relations, and in consequence he floats untethered about this house in which he can find no recognisable moorings. Francis is an addition which, though not unwelcome, has no place in their home due to a lack of necessity. Whilst it is pleasant to lay down his duties and be entirely without dependents, it also leaves him feeling rather marginal to the family within the house, and unsure how to become a part of it - or if he would even be welcome there. It is easier to distance himself on his own terms than to tread cautiously around a life not his own.

James shivers and Francis turns them smartly about. "In," he declares, brooking no argument; but James can only shuffle awkwardly and fuss with his cane. It is no hardship to slide his arm around James' waist and half-haul him back across the lawn - at least, it is not for Francis, who delights in purpose and service and the easy armful that is his own beloved James - but James curses the gravel under their boots and his locking, damaged knees and the weather all. Francis would sweep him into his arms as he had when James was so terribly ill in the North, or haul him over his shoulder like John the Baptist carrying a lamb, only James would not care for it; would rather not be reminded of his weaknesses. But he has, in his aching joints and accursed stumbling, forgotten that Francis does not know how to be a part of his family, and so perhaps, Francis prays, he will not remember it and think twice of loving him. If only Francis can keep his missteps to one controlled line across the frosty lawn, then perhaps James will not regret bringing him here, to this place full of love where Francis does not belong.

* * *

They've had Christmas together before. On the ice together for so long, it was rather inevitable. But they've not had a Christmas such as this, with a feast and a family and one another, to have and to hold.

Francis has taken possession of an armchair by the fire and a book about art theory, though at least half his attention is dedicated to the small child playing an elaborate game with a doll, two candlesticks and a muddy shoe on the rug by his side. He's never been particularly easy around children, and he is presently caught between the desire to leave the girl entirely alone and divorce all responsibility from himself, and visions of her stumbling on legs that have only had six or seven years’ practise of holding her up and burning herself horribly on the fire. His legs, therefore, are extended to block her direct access to the fireplace without Francis at least knowing about it, and he is half-reading his book and half-heartedly fretting about her needing him for something. His endeavours to suggest that a different toy than a boot might be used - one of her new presents, perhaps, that might not track dirt over the carpets and her Sunday-best dress - had been deeply unsuccessful. Miss Anne had pointed out that _she_ was the Lord of Misrule, thank you, and would therefore do as she pleased, and Francis had not had the heart to enforce cleanliness _in loco parentis._

The door opens and Francis flicks his eyes automatically towards the noise. James rewards him for it with a smile and closes the door softly behind him. “Baby is _almost_ asleep,” he says with a raised eyebrow, and Francis can't help a huff of amused resignation. He has enjoyed Christmas here, with James’ family, but Baby ( _Theodosia,_ of all names, and thus likely to be Baby for all of her life) is usually _almost_ asleep for about an hour before she is _actually_ asleep and willing to let her parents out of her sight without screaming.

James crouches beside Anne, stroking a hand down her dark curls. “What's this, then?” he asks, with the ease and interest that Francis can never seem to conjure up around anyone younger than a midshipman. Perhaps if Anne only wanted help with her sums to plot the position of Rose Hill by the stars then she would like Francis better.

“I'm the Green Knight, and Nelly is Gawain, and she's going to cut my head off,” Anne explains brightly, gesturing at the doll and the candlesticks which could, Francis supposes, be stand-ins for an Arthurian sword and a magical green axe, if one was imaginative.

“Right,” James says, after the slightest hesitation. “How festive. The shoe, though: do you need-”

Francis can't help a snort at the absolute disdain pouring off the little girl at the very idea, so he points his amusement at the pages of his book for plausible deniability. The look from James he catches out of the corner of his eye suggests he may not have been overly successful. “I'm the Lord!” Anne says firmly. “If you wanted to tell me what to do, Captain Crozier should have kept his slice of pudding.”

James looks curiously in Francis’ direction, but he keeps his eyes on his book. “Oh?”

Anne nods firmly, dealing her doll a fatal blow with a candlestick and then propping her up to do it again. “If he hadn't swapped his plate with mine, he would have got the sixpence and then he would be the Lord but he isn’t so I'm keeping the boot. So there.”

James sits back on his heels, directing such a gentle smile in his direction that Francis has to struggle to resist squirming under it. The pudding had been sliced by William at the very far end of the table and slices passed down, giving Francis plenty of time to catch the interesting way the candlelight caught on the very edge of the sixpence that stuck out of his piece of the pudding, and which no-one else appeared to have noticed. It had been the work of a moment to swap his plate with Anne’s, and to pretend not to notice her curiosity.

Francis sighs and closes the book around his thumb. “I liked the look of her currants,” he says gruffly, and James fairly beams at him. 

James heaves himself to his feet and stumbles to the armchair, catching onto the arm Francis throws out in worry with a self-deprecating smile and sinking onto the chair’s thick side. In comparison to how much of them _could_ have come back from the Arctic, whole but for a few teeth and toes and with occasionally uncooperative joints is frankly miraculous - but that doesn't stop the pain when it comes, and that doesn't make James the walker that he had been, either, and Francis still frets. Thinking of how much worse it could have been has never once made him feel better.

The chair was not made for two, and James is therefore pressed into Francis’ side, balanced on the chair’s arm and holding tight to Francis’ hand, now wrapped around his waist to hold him secure against the betrayal of his traitorous limbs. Selfishly, Francis has missed this kind of contact since leaving home; James has clearly loved being here, with his family, for Christmas but it has reduced to nil the amount of affection Francis is allowed to show and he misses it. He misses trailing a hand over James’ waist in passing, or eating one-handed so that their hands can link over the table, or brushing a loose curl behind James’ ear while he tells Francis something, too busy gesturing with his hands in excitement to attend to errant hair. He misses holding James tight, pulse beating strong under his hand and chest moving in slow, even breaths as they sleep. Francis should, probably, not hold James like this, in front of Anne and in a place that could, at any moment, be entered by their hosts; but he has missed James, despite seeing him every day, and so he simply adjusts his hand and allows his head to rest, so very gently, against James’ shoulder.

“Do you remember Dundy’s reign?” James asks quietly, a smile in his voice. His thumb rubs gently over Francis’ knuckles, and Francis wonders if James hasn't missed him and his idle contact too.

“I defy anyone to forget it, James,” he says, and James laughs softly. Dundy had been Lord their first Christmas on Beechey, overseen by Franklin; Lord Captain Dundy had demoted all his fellow officers, stolen their drink, made himself supreme commander and passed out into his soup halfway through a passable operetta. Actual festivities had been organised by Sir John, and were therefore rather less disreputable than they might have been, but Dundy had still been daubed enthusiastically with his fellow officers' inky fingers in _interesting_ shapes which wouldn't wash off when he woke. He'd kept his cap pulled low over his stained forehead for all twelve days.

"Dear King Cock-erel Head," James says warmly, with a slightly shifty look in the direction of his happily oblivious goddaughter. Francis gets the distinct impression that the tacked-on ending may have been somewhat remiss aboard Erebus. "Long may he reign."

"You forget Lord Jopson, Master of Misrule," Francis points out, and James slides him a knowing grin for the patriotic, paternal pride that seeps to the fore. Jopson had made the best King Christmas, in Francis' view, and not just because the best Lord should, of course, be a trusted and valued Terror; truly merry and bright, he had had them all singing for their supper and competing in parlour games to earn their drink. Francis, by now quite sober, had been perfectly content to take his captain's hat off for the day and watch his officers make fools of themselves under Jopson's sensibly silly command.

James concedes the point graciously, stabilising his seat on the arm by wrapping an arm about Francis' shoulders. "Yes, all right. Even if you wouldn't dance with me."

Francis prods him, gently, in the hip. "I didn't earn the forfeit," he says, rather than _the very thought of you, in my arms, even then, made my head spin - did you know that? when you asked?_

" _You_ didn't play the game," James says, amused, and squeezes his hand. But then his face sets, a little, as if cast in plaster to maintain a facade of happiness. "There might be games later - you needn't, if you don't want to. Will might ask, but - I can say that you just want to read, or something."

"James," Francis says gently, attempting to maintain some levity in the face of rapidly growing concern. "You mustn't tell your brother, but even art theory is less interesting than The Parson's Cat. I'm sure I shall manage."

James shifts on the seat to face him more directly. "But you don't _have_ to," he says, catching up Francis' fingers and worrying them in his hands. "You've been very good to me, in being here, but-"

"Am I so unsociable as that?" Francis inquires gently, ducking his head to catch James' eye. He looks guilty and unhappy and fretful, all at once, and Francis cannot for the life of him guess why, unless he has been so very impolite-?

"No - it isn't that - it's-" James sighs heavily and closes his eyes, resting his forehead against Francis' temple. Francis shifts his grip around James' waist and pulls him a little nearer, until he is almost sitting entirely in Francis' lap, and entangles their fingers carefully together. It is easy, now, to worry: does James' family not like Francis? would James rather he wasn't here after all? has Francis done something terribly wrong? But he attempts to keep his fears low, simmering on some internal heat that need not show on his face. Francis will bear his fate with external equanimity, if nothing else.

"I know they can be difficult," James says at last. "Will and Elizabeth - they talk a lot, I know, and I was just as bad, and the children are very noisy sometimes. It isn't the Christmas we would have had at home, and you can go, if you want to, or just hide from charades, I don't mind-"

"James-" Francis breathes, a brief break in the sudden flow of worries.

"-you don't have to like them, that's all, I don't mind-" James continues, until Francis gently places his thumb atop James' lips.

"I _do_ like them," Francis says firmly. "They are your family, James, and they love you so well that they've taken in your cantankerous old colleague-"

"- _colleague_ -" James echoes in an objection made into an absent-minded mumble by Francis' thumb and some slight astonishment.

"-at Christmas, when they have a new baby. I should like them for loving you that much alone, but they have also been perfectly pleasant and taught me many interesting things about art." Francis pats the abandoned book in his lap, attempting his best straight face.

James' lips curl into a smile under his thumb. "You're entirely bored of that book, aren't you," he says in blooming delight. His shoulders have slumped somewhat and there is an increase of ease about him, and Francis can't help but wonder how long James has held the weight of his fears just out of Francis' reach.

He shifts his thumb to stroke James' cheek instead. "Not at all," he objects, a performance for which James rewards him with a huff of amusement. "Did you know that Michaelangelo-"

"Oh, no, Francis, not you too," James laughs, eyes dancing, and Francis settles into a smile. "I shall allow you to _like_ my brother, but you may not buy devotional images for our sitting room."

In another moment, Francis might kiss James for that; just for those words, _our sitting room,_ and the safety promised within. Or perhaps for the inclusion of himself and James' family in one breath, or even just the smile curving James' face into something familiar and precious. He might point out that their sitting room is adorned with watercolours of their garden, painted by James himself, and there is no image towards which Francis has any greater devotion than those.

But instead James pulls back and their hands slide apart and Anne wriggles into the gap between them to settle in Francis' lap. "What are you talking about?"

James shoots Francis a raised eyebrow. "Nothing very interesting," he says.

Anne accepts this with ease. "Will you tell me a story?"

"Which one?" James says, shifting on the chair's arm. Anne curls up into a ball, leaning her head against Francis' shoulder, and Francis finds his arm settling around her back almost without him thinking of it; some latent familial instinct kicking in and telling him _here. This is how you keep something that is precious safe._

Anne shakes her head. "I know all your stories. Will Uncle Francis tell me one?"

Francis can't help a grin in James' direction, though he resists the urge to tease. There will be time later to remind him of the oversaturation of his tales, even within his own family, but for now Francis is left wracking his brains for something suitably child-friendly and entertaining.

Anne presses her ear against his sternum as he talks, her head tucked under his chin. "Once upon a time," Francis says, for want of anything better with which to begin, and ignores James' snort of amusement. "A man called Francis went on a walk in Portugal. He climbed a great hill up onto a clifftop, halfway to the sky, and watched lizards the size of his hand and snakes as long as his arm slither about in the dust. He couldn't hear anything but an eagle calling high above him." Anne fidgets, and Francis remembers that a moment of glorious peace and quiet is of far greater interest to him, a middle-aged man, than it is to a seven-year-old girl. With the briefest apologetic glance at James, story-teller extraordinaire, for luck, he begins to invent. "Until he heard a voice from the seas below."

Anne shifts to look up at him curiously, and he can see James' head tilt in interest out of the corner of his eye. "Was it a mermaid?" she says, apparently already quite certain that it was.

"Yes," Francis says, dismissing his sea monster from the wings of the scene. "The man leaned over the edge of the cliff, looking down at the surf below, and there was a mermaid there."

"Singing?" Anne asks, leaning back in the cradle of his arm and resting once more against his shoulder.

Francis shakes his head. "No, this mermaid couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. He was - telling stories to all the little fish. And his name was Uncle James."

He feels more than hears James' huff of amusement against his hair, accompanied by a prod in his shoulder in revenge. Anne laughs in treacherous joy at this slight on her uncle's musical skills. "This isn't a true story!" she objects, delighted.

"Yes it is," Francis says confidently. "It's how your uncle and I met." James nods very seriously, and Anne settles back to hear the rest of the story and enjoy a little longer the phenomenon of adults being _silly._ "I climbed down the cliff very carefully to meet the mer-person and we talked for hours and hours about the sea and the tides and the fish. I only knew it from boats, and he from swimming, so we did not always agree, at first; but when the day got older we thought we knew one another better. We looked at the stars covering the sky edge to edge; the air smells of lime leaves and sunshine, even at night, and the water turns silver under the moon. But then the day ended, and Uncle James had to swim away back to his family under the sea, and I was-"

He can feel James' eyes on him, even as he focusses all his attention on the child. He has said, perhaps, more than he meant to: admitted that _family_ feels like _away_ and that perhaps their day is very old indeed. But he has come too far now to stop, confessions be damned, and Anne is watching and waiting for her story to continue.

"-I was afraid," he says, clearing his throat awkwardly, "that I couldn't swim well enough to go too, and that if I could, I wouldn't know how to breathe underwater when I got there."

There is a long, long silence. The fire shifts and crackles, the carriage clock ticks relentlessly away, but there is no sound from James or Anne. Francis is afraid, abruptly, that he has said too much, or ended his story badly; the water is pressing at him, gently at present, but the level, he fears, is rising and perhaps he will drown after all. "That was a sad story," Anne objects softly.

"That's because it hasn't finished, yet," James says, curling a strand of her hair around a finger and tidying it away as she yawns expansively. "The mer-person was scared to bring Francis with him in case his house under the sea drowned him, but he also missed his home and his family so he asked very nicely if Francis would come too. And because Francis was so brave, he swam with me all the way from Lisbon to Felixstowe, up several rivers and right back here to the pond at the end of the garden." Anne giggles, every blink growing heavier than the last, and James smiles. "And they all lived happily ever after."

In the quiet that follows, once Anne's breathing has slowed into gentle, snuffling snores, James speaks again. "I think you know Portugal better than I do, sometimes."

Francis catches James' hand in his own. "We will visit," he says. "In the spring. You may tell the stories, when you return here again."

James smiles at him, the soft, almost envious sorrow melting from his eyes like snow. "And will you swim back with me, _Uncle Francis?_ "

And - oh. He hadn't noticed that, earlier, but James had. James, who had met his amusement over story-telling preference with such startled, incredible joy - _oh._

James leans in carefully, balancing on the arm of the chair, and presses his lips to Francis' forehead. Francis allows his eyes to flutter closed and a breath to escape him slowly, pressing out with it some of the immediate jumbled-up worries that had flooded him at the idea of being important to a child. "What a horror you shall be," James murmurs into his skin, "when Sophia hands you your godchild in the Spring."

"Why do you think we're going to Portugal then?" Francis mutters in reply, and James laughs quietly.

"She won't forget you that easily," James points out, brushing some hair away from Francis' eyes. "I think you might be important to her."

Francis looks at James - just watches his face, drinks in the familiarity and the love that he directs there and finds reflected back. "I am sorry if I give the impression that I do not wish to be here," he says solemnly, and a frown flies over James' face - but he waits, and allows Francis to continue. "I have not been in a family like yours, and I do not know how to be."

"And I do not know how to invite you in," James says with a gentle smile. "But I am, if you'd like; so be my goddaughter's uncle, and sit by me at supper, and sing carols whilst you putter around the house of my brother, and I imagine we shall figure it out as we go."

Francis cannot quite face that declaration head-on: it feels like a promise of inescapable magnitude when Francis had only expected acceptance; gold, when he hadn't expected any gifts at all.

So whilst he means _heavens, James, I will do anything for you_ what he says is: "Will there be mincemeat on a spoon?"

And James laughs, loud enough that Anne stirs slightly and cuddles deeper into Francis' chest, and he says: "If you sing very sweetly, I dare say there might."

**Author's Note:**

> this was more about religious art than i think any of us were anticipating.
> 
> francis is thinking about the pietà by bouguereau, except he isn't, because it wouldn't be painted for another twenty-odd years. you can think about it, though, and ignore any other historical liberties.


End file.
